


_All Good Things

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [10]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Post-Prologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The immediate aftermath of the Merlaut job and its fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	_All Good Things

[this takes in september 2012]

* * *

_"An incident at Mad Mile's prestigious Merlaut Hotel has put the police on alert. Details are still sparse, but it appears that a yet unidentified man, when approached by hotel security, attacked and subsequently fled the scene. Security personnel has been injured, one man is being taken to hospital. Police are at the scene, but the circumstances remain vague. Road blocks are in place and police are still searching the premises and surrounding area. An official statement by the police is expected within the hour…"_

Damien tossed the remote at the television. It bounced off the screen and skidded over the floor, landing in an empty pizza carton. The news droned on as Damien got up and marched across the darkened room back to his desk.

_"Speculations are running high. Was this a foiled terrorist attack?"_

People were too quick to hysterics, really and for all the wrong reasons. Damien glanced up again. The news had pulled some so-called 'experts' from their asses. Shit, just how big was this getting anyway?

There weren't going to be answers on the news, Damien knew that much. He leaned forward on both hands, watched the logs on the screen, clinically mapping out the exact shape of today's disaster. Without taking his eyes away, Damien fished his chair close, sat down. He had a feeling he'd be in this very place for many nights to come.

_"… could it be this was the beginning of a spree killing rather than a terror attack?"_

Somebody else in the system. Somebody _else_ tripping the alarm. He knew it hadn't been him, after all, he'd just been caught in the same web. He'd been cut short, but he'd probably had enough to track him to his source, find the little shit and turn his life to hell for ruining his run tonight.

The Merlaut had been a stroke of genius, best idea Aiden had had in weeks. _Rich_ hunting grounds if ever there were any. Ripe for the picking and a new security system, but riddled with its out-of-the-box exploits. If this other hacker hadn't been a fucking amateur. If _Aiden_ of all people, hadn't suddenly run scared…

The flickering light from the television changed and drew his attention back. The host abruptly interrupted her 'expert' and went on to comment on live footage from a police helicopter. It was trailing a car through the traffic of downtown Chicago. A white or silver Sonarus, by the shape of it, easy to track against the rain-darkened road. Police must have seriously underestimated the size of their perimeter, because Aiden was already well beyond it and going at breakneck speed through evening traffic, police cruisers visibly struggling to keep up.

As Damien watched, the Sonarus braked abruptly, pivoted in a nearly perfect 90 degree angle and vanished into an alley, where the helicopter lost sight of it, blocked by tall buildings.

Damien's phone rang. He ignored it for a long while, didn't even need to look at it to know who was calling. _Now_ Aiden remembered he was supposed to have nerves of steel, _now,_ when it didn't matter anymore.

The helicopter gained height, circled the block of houses and still nearly missed the Sonarus break through into a main-street again. Police cruisers had managed to gain on him, advancing from one side. The Sonarus backed up, turned and sped down the other way, drifted around a corner and wiped across the sidewalk. The helicopter lost sight of it again.

The phone kept ringing. Damien sneered at it before he swept it up and finally answered.

"My boy, you are on TV," he announced with acid cheerfulness.

"I'm coming to pick you up," Aiden said and if anything, he seemed calmer than ever. The engine roared in the background, screeching of car tyres and metal as he forced his way through. Sirens were audible only distantly as he gained on his pursuers.

"You've got half of CPD trailing you," Damien pointed out dryly. "And I don't think have enough lemonade for all your friends."

There was a pause, something crashed on the other end of the phone and Damien turned back to the TV in time to see Aiden bring his car around a sharp turn. A compact car failed to stop in time and caught the Sonarus' tail, shoved the bigger car over the sidewalk and almost into an elevated train pillar. Instead, Aiden managed to yank his car around just in time, the vehicle tore open lengthwise on the pillar, Damien heard the howl of the metal through the phone.

"I'll shake them," Aiden said. He needed a moment to free his car from the pillar, had to ram his way past a police cruiser and the helicopter lost him again as he followed underneath the train tracks.

"You have twenty minutes to pack," Aiden continued. "Too many people got a good look at me in the Merlaut. They can find me, they'll find you."

"You can never make it in twenty minutes," Damien observed. "They've almost got you, my boy."

"Damien!" Aiden snapped. "Everything's gone to shit. I don't know what happened, I'm not going to take chances. And I won't let _you._ Be ready."

Aiden cut the connection before Damien had a chance to argue. Stupid boy, really, thought he had any say in it…

Damien stood in the living room, while the TV kept at it — back to the 'expert', now that the police was casting about in the dark — and the countless lines of logs spread out across all his computer screens. Despite himself, Damien listened for telltale signs outside, for sirens, abruptly muted as too many cars made a turn into the lane, coming from all sides. He heard nothing of the sort, though.

But much as he hated to admit it, Aiden had a point. There were only two ways left for this to go. The cops would catch Aiden, and while Aiden wouldn't talk, he wouldn't have to. The cops would unravel his life and inevitably, it would lead them back to Damien. If the cops _didn't_ catch him, in the days to follow, everything about tonight would be analysed and traced until the pieces all came together. Damien had left too many traces in the Merlaut's system.

Sooner or later, someone would show up on his doorstep. There'd better not be anything interesting left for them to find.

_"Coming up only on WKZ: Exclusive footage from the Merlaut. Stay tuned."_

Damien sat back down at the desk, quickly going through his data, sifting through terabytes of valuable information in mere minutes. It was his life's work, even if the sentimentality of it nearly made him gag. It _was,_ though. Pieces of knowledge, account and credit card information, company secrets, dirty secrets, profiles of potential marks… all on his fingertips to take and use and sell to the highest bidder.

He transferred the most important things to two laptops, both sitting idly by his side, tiny and feeble in front of the servers. He wouldn't be able to take everything, not like this.

_"These are recordings from security cameras in the Merlaut's lobby. We would like to thank the Merlaut management for allowing us it broadcast these. The faces of guests and staff, have of course been blurred out."_

Damien turned back to watch the television again, listening with one ear to the chattering of his hard drives as they worked to preserve his precious data.

The Merlaut's security cam footage was a little jumpy, black and white, cameras moving around the lobby at utterly predictable intervals. Damien knew they had barely caught Aiden, not while he was still in control of the situation. The angle of his cap shadowed his face from above and he was too average to identify him by his stature and build alone.

Damien watched and felt his mood darken with every passing minute, seeing what there was, how _perfectly_ everything had been going. And there it was, the exact moment everything changed. Aiden swerved to the side, still in his casual stroll, an already failing attempt to avoid attention. Even Damien could see the agitation of the security guards scattered around the lobby, could see them as they left their places to close in.

Aiden dropped the phone into the pocket of his jacket — the moment Damien had been disconnected and it made him curse and seethe just watching it. He could tell Aiden wasn't going to make it to the doors, not by the way the doormen had already shifted to block his path. Aiden took a running start anyway, collided with one of the two doormen at full speed, took him down. The camera footage stuttered, took away some of the speed and precision of the move, left only the sheer brutality of it. Damien thought he might hear the man's jaw break as it collided with Aiden's elbow.

The other doormen lunged for him and got a hold of his arm, tried to trip him and failed. Aiden used the moment, reached past the doorman and pulled the man's gun. The guard tried to block him, but Aiden slipped his free hand around the man's chest and up over his throat. With the guard firmly between himself and the other security, Aiden edged backwards through the door and shoved the doormen away as he turned and bolted.

_"The man has not yet been identified, but the police are positive they will soon attach a name to the attacker."_

A change in rhythm in the chattering of his hard drives brought Damien back. All done. All he could take, anyway and no sign of Aiden yet. He was fairly sure the news would report an arrest immediately, so Aiden hadn't been caught yet…

Lights washed through the room as a car pulled up the driveway. Damien took a deep breath.

He had a failsafe installed on his system. One click and the thing would wipe everything beyond any hope of recovery. Maybe, with enough time and skill, some police technician could reconstruct a few bytes of data, not enough to trace him and certainly not enough evidence to convict, should it ever come to that.

The dialog box was open, mirrored on all screens, looking innocent enough. Just one click, and it'd be done. _Are you sure?_

Instead, Damien got up and walked to the front door, leaned in the doorway. The car parked in the driveway was a small red Bogen 200 in pristine condition, except for it's smashed in window on the driver's side.

"You're late," Damien remarked. "You're really losing your touch, Aiden."

Aiden ignored him. He circled the car and opened the trunk, pulled out two canisters and walked toward the house.

Damien frowned. "What's this?"

Aiden gave him a hard look, piercing gaze even in the darkness. "There are six years worth of trace evidence in that house," he said. "I'm not going to jail for this and it's the easiest way to get rid of it all."

He pushed past Damien and put the canisters down. "Get the others," he told Damien and switched on the light in the hallway, pulled a travel bag from the wardrobe and went quickly through the other things stored there.

Damien had only turned around, leaned his other shoulder in the doorway. "When are you gonna apologise?" he asked.

Aiden glanced up briefly and said nothing, slung the bag over his shoulder and made his way to the living room. Damien heard him rummage around, packing what he thought he needed, while Damien didn't move an inch. The longer he stood there, the stronger the smell of gasoline from the canisters became.

Damien waited. He wanted a cigarette. Giving up had been the worst choice he'd ever made. He couldn't recall, now, why he had done it. A moment of fearing his own mortality, perhaps. As if it mattered, really, as if it made any difference when he had always known he wouldn't die peacefully of old age.

Aiden returned to the hallway, dropped the now full bag and stood facing Damien. He'd taken off the cap, stuffed it into his pocket, leaving his face without treacherous shadows for once. He seemed mildly puzzled.

"Why are you just standing there?"

"What the fuck happened today?" Damien asked. "What were you thinking?"

"What was _I_ thinking?" Aiden asked back, baring his teeth a little into the beginnings of a sneer. " _You_ tripped their security. It was all going south after that."

"And now you want to blow up my house," Damien concluded. "I made no mistake. It's you who disconnected me too soon."

It seemed to be Aiden's day to not giving Damien what he wanted. Right now, he wanted an _admission,_ or at least a discussion. In many ways, it'd be better if they would be shouting at each other.

Aiden pushed past Damien without another word, returned to the car, put the bag in the trunk and brought two more canisters into the hallway. He put one down, but unscrewed the other. The stink increased almost immediately.

"Last chance, Damien," Aiden said, his voice hard. The point was clearly not negotiable. They could push blame back and forth for hours, until the police finally tracked them, but it wouldn't change a thing. The damage was done, neither of them could go back and replay the past.

Damien felt a scowl tighten his face. He pushed himself away from the door. "Give me five minutes," he said darkly.

In a way, this had always been setup to go up in flames. It was their headquarters, their base of operations and it had always been meant to be abandoned if the bloodhounds got too close. The most valuable thing in it were the computers, but he had already taken care of that. What remained, other than that, barely took the five minutes he had demanded. A handful of fake ID's, a set of phones and the laptops he had stuffed with data before. Aiden had apparently already taken all the weaponry.

By the time Damien was done, the house already reeked of gasoline, soaking through the worn carpet and into the old furniture.

The dialog box still filled all screens, still patiently waiting for the end. When Damien returned to the living room, he found Aiden looking at it pensively.

"Now what…?" Damien asked. Aiden gave him a brief look, then reached out and hit enter, just like that, no ceremony, no _reference._ It meant nothing, maybe it never had and now it was gone. The progress bar filled up as it erased the data, took barely ten seconds to do it.

"Well that was anticlimactic," Damien remarked. "You should get that checked before you disappoint in a more intimate situation."

The screens turned black and a bright white line wrote itself across all of them: _No OS found on hard drive…_ the curser blinked patiently. The whole rig would blow up soon enough.

Aiden picked up the laptops, shoved them into Damien's hands as he walked past. "Let's go," he said.

Aiden parked the little red car across the road, then went back inside to set the fire. Damien hung back by the car, watching the odd peacefulness of the scene, the way the street was empty of anyone else.

The first spark of flame became visible through the windows and it spread incredibly quickly, crawling from curtain to curtain. If it were a scene from a film, it would have been quite a bit prettier, less black smoke and more bright flames. It changed quickly, though, as the fire started to eat through the wooden walls. Aiden emerged through the door, framed by the fire and walking with a certain leisurely stride, as if it was nothing.

Well, Damien thought sourly, no use for that composure now, is it? If he hadn't shot it to hell earlier, this certainly wouldn't have become necessary.

Aiden settled his back on the hood, side by side with Damien.

The house burned quietly for a little while and than an earsplitting explosion took the roof right off, rained glowing shards down on them but neither man seemed to notice. Aiden flicked a burning piece of debris from his shoulder.

The sudden surge of oxygen made the flames lick high into the night-sky. Aiden must have opened the gas valves. There was some minor chance this thing would be considered an accident, but there was no way to make sure of it.

Lights went on in neighbouring houses. It would only be a moment before the first neighbours crowded out into the street. No doubt someone was already calling the firefighters, the cops, too, maybe.

"What now?" Damien asked. "Any other great ideas?"

Aiden didn't answer immediately, seemed mesmerised by the fire in front of them. He'd always liked his destruction, but this time, he had no right to stand there and admire it. This, right there in front of them, was a blazing sign of defeat, the culmination of an increasing list of mishaps.

"I'll drop you off at a motel," Aiden said. He got up and walked around the car. "Get in."

The first onlookers slowly congealed on the burning house, clustering together in small groups, pointing with their fingers, talking among themselves, a few were taking pictures with their phones. Somewhere in the distance, a siren made itself heard.

Damien took his time, kept watching the fire and thought of everything he hadn't been able to save. He had what he needed, though, he could track this other hacker and make sure he got what was coming for him. He'd need to do a bit of prodding to get Aiden to do the really nasty things, but in the end, they'd both enjoy it.

When he thought he'd waited long enough to make his point, Damien pushed himself away from the hood and got into the car. They passed by the fire-engine, just as it turned into the street. Another, smaller explosion stalked them. Damien fiddled with the side mirror so he could catch the last licks of the flames before it was taken out of sight. A dull red glow hung on the sky above.

The silence in the car was almost absolute, punctuated only by the thin hum of the engine and the rushing wind through the broken window. Streetlights strove through the car, harsh white and sometimes the hellish glare of a traffic light as they waited and the silence became worse for a moment, until the green released them.

Chicago was quiet now, an odd counterpoint to earlier, there were no chases here, no police to outrun. Not yet, and if Aiden had at least got one thing right tonight, then there wouldn't be enough left of the house to ever catch up to them.

"You still haven't apologised," Damien pointed out.

Aiden was silent, gaze fixed on the road as if driving suddenly constituted a challenge for him. Damien was almost certain he wouldn't say anything at all and was that _ever_ aggravating.

Finally, Aiden said, "You really don't get it, do you?"

"Get what, exactly, my boy?" Damien asked back. "Because what I get is this: You freaked out. I've never seen you do that before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. You didn't keep it together and I had no time to wipe us from the Merlaut's system. You screwed up and because you screwed up, everyone's onto us now." He paused for effect. "You need to apologise. And _maybe_ I'll forgive you."

"You should have backed out when I told you to," Aiden said. "There would've been plenty of time to wipe everything if you hadn't gone after the other hacker."

"There was plenty of time," Damien agreed. "Until you disconnected me."

"I had to disconnect you," Aiden insisted. "I had to get out of there."

He shook his head, put the gas pedal down to make a traffic light before it turned red. "You see, that's the part you've never understood. It's _my_ head on the line when we do things like that. I'm in the middle of it. And because that's the case, I get to call the shots."

Damien forced a little snigger past his throat. He didn't much feel like laughing, but Aiden was completely ridiculous. "This partnership," Damien said. "Is a meritocracy. And since I'm obviously contributing more value, I'm also the one in charge."

It was a harsh assessment, he usually tried to spare Aiden's pride, but while his partner had a surprisingly capable mind, every so often, the street thug in him had trouble taking a hint.

Aiden was silent for another moment, when he spoke again the words came low and clipped, with that growl he got in his voice when he was angry. "We're done."

He didn't make the next traffic lights and stopped a little too abruptly, jolting Damien who hadn't put on a seat belt. He reached out with one hand to steady himself. He'd always hated riding shotgun, even if Aiden was undisputedly the better driver.

"Well obviously," Damien said. "You've just burned it all down. It'll be some time until we're set up again."

"No," Aiden rumbled. "We are _done,_ Damien."

Damien laughed. "You can't be serious!"

"You think today was the first time working with you nearly cost me my skin?" Aiden snapped, raising his voice for the first time. The airflow from the open window stole only some of his sudden ferocity. "You keep losing it, Damien. I can't rely on you. And if I can't trust you to have my back, I don't need you."

"Aren't you hil _ar_ ious today!" Damien snorted. "Don't blame your mistakes on me. I had your back, I had it covered. Do you think I _couldn't_ have called those security back? You just had to sit still, pretend you are a clueless bystander until I got control of their system. It'd have been nothing but a false alarm. _That'_ s what happened. Don't give me that grand speech about 'having your back'. I had yours, kid. It's you who failed me."

Aiden shifted his grip on the wheel, resting one hand casually on top, while keeping his right hand on the gear-shift. "Think what you want," he said. "There's no partnership anymore. We split the money and we part ways. That's all there is."

Damien crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window, watched the lights go by and let his mind go empty. Eventually he said, "Parker Seven."

Aiden gave no answer, but took the next left turn, putting them on route to the motel. The Parker Seven was a good place, fairly central on Parker Square, but rundown enough to have reliable vacancies and no one asking awkward questions. They could lie low for now… Well, _he_ could lie low. Aiden seemed to have decided he'd hole up somewhere else until his sanity kicked back in. It was better to leave him his space if he got into one of his moods.

They stopped outside the Parker Seven and the silence fell like a choking veil when Aiden killed the engine.

"I take it you won't be staying," Damien said conversationally. He shook into motion somewhat slower than technically necessary. Aiden was looking straight ahead, hand still resting on the steering wheel. His posture was tense above a flimsy attempt at annoyed patience.

"So that's it?" Damien asked. "You think you're done with me. You think I've… what? Served my use?" He pulled an ugly grin. "There's nothing left for me to teach?"

"It's not worth it," Aiden said.

"You don't understand the first thing of what I do."

"No doubt."

Damien glanced at him from the side, frowned when no other reaction came. "You need me," Damien said.

"I need you to get out of the car."

Damien huffed, but gave up. There was nothing to be done here, not tonight. He opened the door with more force than was necessary, stalked around the car to pick up his bags. Damien leaned down by the open passenger door. "What about the money?" he asked. "You don't want that, either?"

Aiden barely moved, gave him a dark, sidelong glance past the shadow of his cap and the darkness of the car. "You can transfer it. I don't have to stick around for that. I'll know if you try to cheat me. You don't want that."

"Ho ho," Damien chortled. "Threats, is it now? We've come so far in such a short time."

"Yes," Aiden agreed coldly. "Let's not take it any further."

He let go of the wheel and leaned over, got hold of the door and yanked it out of Damien's grip. For a moment, his face was lit by the motel's garish sign, metallic blue and green, crawling over a thin-lipped sneer and dangerously narrowed eyes. "Ta-ta," he said as the door snapped closed. Amazing just how much disdain he put in that simple expression. He sounded almost serious…

There were many things Damien could've have said, of course, but Aiden was clearly not in the mood to listen. It was never a good idea to taunt a killer when he was itching for a fight. Damien _could_ handle Aiden, but sometimes he just preferred not to. Aiden would find some other way to get it out of his system and _then_ they could talk like two adults.

Aiden drove off and left Damien standing under the motel's sign. It began to flicker in the slow drizzle of rain. He stood there for a long moment, running the scene through his head again, trying to find the fault, the flaw, the _right words_ to make his bullheaded partner understand what had really happened.

They'd had a good thing, for fuck's sake, they _owned_ this town together and the stupid kid would throw it all away? Over what? Over his own mistake? Because he couldn't face his own weakness? Street kids, weren't they supposed to get back up when they were beaten down? Not run away with their tail between their legs, which was _exactly_ what Aiden was doing. Running away. Like running scared in the Merlaut earlier tonight. No wonder he didn't want to face the truth.

The rain picked up and Damien sighed to himself, slung his bag over his shoulder. He looked around the parking lot until he spotted the dull glow of a sign above one door. _Re epti n_. Lovely place, really. Suitable end to the night.

Damien stopped and turned back around. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called a cab. If they were covering their tracks, might as well do it thoroughly.

Aiden would be back, Damien decided as he settled into the back of the cab a little later. "Grand Aurora Hotel, please," he told the driver.

Once Aiden had cooled off and thought things through, he'd figure out who really was to blame, who'd lost his nerve in exactly the wrong moment. Of course, he'd never admit it, not to himself and much less to Damien. Instead, he'd find some manipulative, roundabout way to make sure that what happened in the Merlaut stayed in the Merlaut. Aiden was like that. Difficult, but probably not stupid enough to let this be the end of it.

At the very least, when he ran out of money he'd learn the hard way that he wasn't ready to do the heavy lifting when it came to hacking. It'd bring him back like nothing else could. He could earn his living taking fixer contracts, but Aiden hated not being his own man. No, he'd come around and in a few weeks, they'd be back in the game with nothing much changed. Except for that score they had to settle.

Damien was rather looking forward to getting even.

He smirked a little in the dark, picturing it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm... dissatisfied... with this. Long experience has taught me not to harp on about such things for too long. After all, why inflict it on unsuspecting readers if I genuinely think it sucks? I don't think it sucks, but it could be better, I just don't know where exactly it goes wrong.
> 
> Regardless, **thanks for reading!**
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Revised** on 31/May/2015 and 19/May/2016


End file.
